Imphal: Sarjubala Devi, the lone Indian woman boxer left standing at the ongoing Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia, is not your typical sportswoman. The 25-yer-old Manipuri pugilist had got her hair dyed in a golden colour in the hope of winning a gold in the tournament. Such is her confidence and determination.
In a media interview earlier this year, Sarjubala had said, “The colour in my hair will give me a lot of motivation. I am hopeful that I earn a gold medal in Jakarta; so I went to the parlour and got my hair coloured.”
The reigning national women’s boxing champion advanced to the quarter-finals at the games after defeating Tajikistan’s Madina Ghaforova 5-0 in a qruelling pre-quaterfinal bout of the flyweight 51kg category on Sunday. She will now play against China’s Chang Yuan in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Sarjubala was born into a poor farmer’s family in Manipur in 1993. She joined boxing in school in 2005 inspired by the success stories of Indian boxing legend Mary Kom. Two years later, she joined the Imphal centre of the Sports Authority of India . She won the world youth championships in 2011, before going on to win the senior national championships the same year.
The diminutive Manipuri also won the siver medal in the women’s world boxing championship held in the Korean city of Jeju in 2014.
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